Efficient use of time?

[Darian Springer]

Hey All,

I was just talking to a friend of mine about railsbridge, and she asked me about the sticker of installfest completion that is still on my laptop since my first railsbridge. It reminded me of this last railsbridge, where depending on their device some people had massive issues with the installation(looking at you ChromeBook and Windows XP). I suggested they use nitrous.io as an alternative and some folks were pretty happy with the results.

Now I don't work for nitrous, and only suggest it because it is the tool that I am most comfortable and familiar with, but my question is, could we potentially use the time for installfests on getting to the curriculum sooner by using a tool like nitrous? There is also the added benefit that web solutions are available on most or all major browsers, so they're not married to their wonderful, but local, VMs.

-Darian Springer

[Daniel Choi]

Hi Darian

Thanks for chiming in. In fact someone has brought nitrous up before. You might be able to search for the thread at https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!searchin/railsbridge-workshops/Nitrous$20io/railsbridge-workshops/GwsIkCp_PSE A Nitrous version of the curriculum would be great. It's a good idea to try.

There are differing opinions across all the Railsbridge chapters even on the VM. Boston spearheaded the VM idea, but SF has been reluctant to follow because they want the development experience to be as real as possible, and that to them means that workshop students should be programming on their native systems. 

So I don't think there is much of a chance of convincing all the Railsbridges to make a switch over to Nitrous in the short run. But I see no reason not to allow a few volunteers create a Nitrous version of the curriculum and then use one workshop to put it to the test. We can then report back on the experience to all the other Railsbridge organizers and either keep running with the idea or revert the commit.

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[Daniel Choi]

Sorry for the bad link. Here is a better one: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/railsbridge-workshops/ntirous$20io

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[Jon Cheng]

So if you're considering cloud dev environments, I used to recommend nitrous and successfully taught with it a few times. It's gotten worse though and I try to run people on cloud 9 now.

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[Jennifer]

I know I am the minority here, but I'm pretty against using VMs. I think the install part of installfest is pretty important. Considering it can be on of the most frustrating parts of getting started, we don't want someone to leave RailsBridge motivated to keep coding but not able to actually do so on their own machine. Sure, they could just come to the next project night, but that assumes that (a) there is a project night *right* after RailsBridge and (b) that they will actually come and not be embarrassed that they couldn't install by themselves. Yes, it stinks that installing often takes so much time and can be so frustrating, but better to do that in a helpful, fun environment than leave them to try to do it at home, by themselves.

Also, why can we not create a script for windows similar to thoughtbot's laptop script for macs (https://github.com/thoughtbot/laptop)?

Jennifer Konikowski

[Jon Cheng]

Side note: I've been using railsinstaller for my windows students at GA and it's worked fine for me. The newest version comes with ruby 2 and rails 4.1. That along with a nice little command line upgrade in Console 2 (command prompt desperately need tabs) gives me a decent dev environment for students without much work.

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[Jennifer Konikowski]

Perfect. As for chromebooks… UGH. They have to use something like cloud9, but really, you shouldn’t be developing on a chromebook anyway. Sorry, not a fan.

Jennifer

[Daniel Choi]

What about a two-tier installfest strategy, where the Plan A is
attempting the native install and if Plan A starts going very wrong for
someone or isn't an option, Plan B is to fall back to the VM or the
Cloud?



On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 09:23 AM, Jennifer <jmort...@gmail.com> wrote:

> from: Jennifer <jmort...@gmail.com>
> date: Sat, Dec 13 06:23 AM -08:00 2014
> to: railsbridge-...@googlegroups.com
> subject: Re: Efficient use of time?

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[Daniel Choi]

On the other hand, the cloud option might make it possible to have a
one-day workshop. This makes it easier to attend and volunteer,
especially for people who need to arrange day care or other scheduling
burdens. It also reduces the workshop cost probably by 30 percent,
which could mean more frequent workshops or higher capacity or both.

Apart from the VM question, maybe we could experiment with a 1 day track
with the cloud option someday, just to see how it goes.


On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 11:33 AM, Daniel Choi <dhc...@gmail.com> wrote:

> from: Daniel Choi <dhc...@gmail.com>
> date: Sat, Dec 13 11:33 AM -05:00 2014
> to: Jennifer <jmort...@gmail.com>
> cc: railsbridge-...@googlegroups.com, dhc...@gmail.com

[Janet Riley]

That's our current strategy. Always for chromebook, once in a while for others.
Janet

[Janet Riley]

I didn't read that carefully before I replied.


So, these options optimize for different factors:

* minimizing install time to maximize workshop time, with the tradeoff of not having "real" tools
* minimize installation complexity by using VMs, with the assumption that VM installations have fewer curveballs than native installations
* maximizing empowerment and clarity by installing native versions

And the tradeoffs include:
* having or not having the "real" tools after
* mental complexity of explaining VMs
* liklihood of remembering how to use the VM after
* installation time
* installfest skillset -  i.e. we need Decklin for the outliers
* ... but student access to expertise when installing the real tools

Did I capture them all?
Janet

On Saturday, December 13, 2014 12:32:44 PM UTC-5, Janet Riley wrote:

That's our current strategy. Always for chromebook, once in a while for others.
Janet

[Daniel Choi]

Two more considerations pro VM / Cloud:

* Curriculum maintenance is simplified because everyone is in a uniform
development environment
* Development in a VM is "real" development -- a lot of companies have
devs develop in VMs -- that is in fact the whole purpose of VMs -- to
provide a development environment

On Sat, Dec 13, 2014 at 12:41 PM, Janet Riley <jisalway...@gmail.com> wrote:

> from: Janet Riley <jisalway...@gmail.com>
> date: Sat, Dec 13 09:41 AM -08:00 2014
> to: railsbridge-...@googlegroups.com
> cc: dhc...@gmail.com, jmort...@gmail.com

> subject: Re: Efficient use of time?
>

[Jennifer]

Re Janet's notes about the tradeoffs:

And the tradeoffs include:
* having or not having the "real" tools after

For any who say VMs are good enough, how many actually just coded on VMs and never got set up locally? Why is it so terrible to spend the time helping them get set up so they have an easier time after they leave the workshop if they want to continue coding? 

* mental complexity of explaining VMs

The actually complexity of explaining VMs to newbies is definitely a real issue. Why are we adding something else that's potentially hard for them to understand just to make it easier on us? 

* liklihood of remembering how to use the VM after

Yup. Another step instead of just opening up your computer 

* installation time 

* installfest skillset -  i.e. we need Decklin for the outliers
* ... but student access to expertise when installing the real tools

I think these are all linked... I don't think the time it takes is a negative. You can always run into issues getting things running (even when not a beginner), so it's good to at least do it once with help around and we can help them learn how to google for issues they run into.

Are there any RailsBridge alums that have an opinion about one way or the other?

Jennifer

[Daniel Choi]

It's not just bad of the TAs. You feel bad for those attendees who end up sitting passively until 10pm or 11pm on install fest night while TAs try to triage their inexplicable installation problems. This happened more often pre-VM.

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[Jennifer Konikowski]

Why not pull aside people who have issues, and work to fix those while the others continue? That's always worked at events I've done.

Jennifer

[Darian Springer]

Sorry I've been MIA, had some deadlines I needed to reach.

I try to run a weekly programming night for people of all skill levels, but currently all attendees are people with non-technical backgrounds that require a few lessons before they can get up and running. I teach them on cloud services for a number of reasons.

I firmly believe that as a programmer it is important to be able to solve your problems with the internet, but i've realized that an installation battle is more for those that already have spent a good amount of time programming and are interested enough to install it on their local system. I feel like VMs indeed alleviate this issue, but require a decent amount of time nonetheless. For example, at the last railsbridge, some people had issues with the version of the vm they had downloaded(there were multiple USBs floating around), and many other people spent time simply trying to get the correct USB or download it. A cloud solution is much less of a time sink.

Most importantly, i've realized that for those I teach, gaining a familiarity with this new world is higher on their priority list than how to successfully install. They often come with a mindset that coding is difficult, and get scared even at the sight of a black screen with white letters. I understand that railsbridge is about starting people on ruby and rails programming, as well as keeping them engaged so that they can continue with it in the future, but I think that this goal is much more easily achieved if we can spend the time gained from the installfest on showing people how simple and powerful it is to work in the command line, and give them the skills to navigate on it and use it in their daily lives.

I believe in the last railsbridge workshop, there was a picture/slide/page (I don't recall which) dedicated to showing people how to tell if they were on their own terminal, the VMs commane line, or in irb; even with this explanation there, there were still a fair amount of people that couldn't tell by the end of the workshop, where they were in the system. After 2 or 3 lessons, the people I teach still had some issues, albeit far less. The confidence they gained from being able to use their terminal, dramatically increased their desire to continue learning. I think that using the installfest time on learning and familiarizing with the basics will help people retain more and be excited enough to stick with it.

-Darian

Sent from my phone, please excuse any typos

[Paul Morganthall]

I saw a posting for NYC Railsbridge where they did a small trial with nitrous.io to see how it would go. I found the posting, but no write-up on the results.

https://www.bridgetroll.org/events/64